Boys volleyball: Tornado warning allows mental reset for Brunswick in win over Medina

MEDINA — Jarrod Delattre issued his own warning Tuesday night inside Richard H. Clevidence Gymnasium. After a 10-minute delay when a tornado warning sent players, coaches and spectators into the lower hallways of the gym following the third set, Delattre put on a show in the fourth as the Brunswick boys volleyball team downed Medina 25-20, 26-24, 21-25, 25-22 in a great Greater Cleveland Conference matchup. Delattre, who had 27 kills for the second straight match against the Bees, but this time in one fewer set, hammered eight mostly violent kills in the decisive fourth set after struggling in the third. "I was upset with myself, and I pushed it onto other people," the senior said of his numerous errors in the third. "That (tornado warning) break helped me calm down. "I didn't want to go five (sets). I just wanted to make a statement." The Blue Devils (13-4, 8-1), who shared the GCC crown with Medina (7-8, 6-3) last year, moved a step closer to winning the conference outright this season. A win over Strongsville, which was 8-7, 6-2 prior to Tuesday and has beaten Brunswick and the Bees, would all but assure the Blue Devils of the outright crown. For being in that position, they can thank Delattre, who regained his communication with setter Nathan Frick after a rough third set. "He's difficult to block," Bees coach Chris Howells said. "The way he attacks the ball, he gets on top of it and drives it down with force. At the end, he was hitting over the block." Delattre, who was on the receiving end of about 80% of Frick's sets, punctuated many of his kills in the fourth set with a thrust of his fist and a yell, but he didn't win the match on his own. The left-handed Frick. who also doubles as a hitter when needed, finished with nine kills and two aces, while middle hitter Maxim Shapovalov added six kills. Shapovalov was huge in the fourth set, registering four straight kills as the Blue Devils went from an early 3-0 deficit to a 4-4 tie. Brunswick, which looked like it was in danger of going to five sets with Medina for the third time in the last four meetings — the Bees beat the Blue Devils last season after going down 0-2 — also got three aces from Jonah Kilo and three kills, a block and an ace from Nicholas Tvrdik. "I told the kids during the break that it could either work for us or against us," Medina's Howells said of the delay. "We came out with some energy and I thought momentum would stay on our side, but it came down to execution." Left-hander Oliver Singer led the Bees with 13 kills, two blocks and an ace, but like Delattre he had stretches where he made his share of hitting errors. Brayden Howells added nine kills, steady setter Dylan Coughlin had eight and middle hitter Aiden Gontarz, who started the match by doing back flips as he took the court, had six. Medina also got some great digs from libero Trent Balicki. Delattre (9) and Frick (3) combined for all Brunswick's kills in the first set, and a Shapovalov block and Delattre kill — Medina may have played a ball that was out — helped the Blue Devils win two crucial long points in the second. Down 7-4 in the third set, the Bees went on a 9-0 run that featured a pair of Brayden Howells kills and a lot of Brunswick errors. Then the tornado siren went off and Delattre followed after the break. "We always play better when we're calm and know what we have to do," he said. "We have to focus on what we're doing. We always play better when we do that." Contact Rick Noland at (330) 721-4046 or rnoland@medina-gazette.com. Follow him @RickNoland on X.